Jews cannot easily be recognized by distinctive physical characteristics. However, westerners have made unparalleled efforts to make them visible. Since clothes and signs, which had marked Jews as different, could be removed, anthropologists and popular media in the 19th century selected certain physical characteristics and portrayed them as "typically" Jewish in order to suggest that Jews can be identified by their physical difference.
The "treacherous" nose
A large hooked nose has especially stigmatized Jews. This construct has also had an effect in Jewish circles: the surgical nose operation has a long tradition. The anthropological studies of Maurice Fishberg first proved around 1900 that the "Semitic" nose is not particularly "Jewish". He found that 30 percent of the non-Jewish population in the alpine region of Germany have this type of nose.
Dennis Kardon Jewish Noses 1993-1995, oil on sculpey (synthetic clay) New York, courtesy of Dennis Kardon
"I am often asked whether or not Jews have a 'Semitic' nose. After 54 years of experience, I can only answer that every Jew I have ever met has a nose!" Sander L. Gilman
We are the ones who make foreigners out of other people. This becomes particularly clear when we can't immediately identify the other as different. Simply knowing about another religion, language, background, etc., brings clichŽs to life in our minds and changes our behavior.
Impuls@TBWA/Alberto Venzago Lea Cohen, 45, photographer: "Everything's fine. As long as they don't know I'm Jewish." Bern, 1997, Campaign of the Swiss Confederation Commission against Racism Bern, Eidgenšssische Kommission gegen Rassismus
